We’ve written about Avengers: Age of Ultron, we’ve talked about Avengers: Age of Ultron, we’ve even thrown in a LEGO build based on a surprise appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and now we want… nay we NEEED to know what you think of the movie.
Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron
Marvel Studios presents “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure.
Did you see the movie? Use the comment section below and share your thoughts now.
And don’t worry about spoiling anything, if someone has read this they should know what s/he is in for.
9 Comments
Well, since the movie doesn’t even open until this afternoon, I will have to jump in my Delorian, jump ahead half a day, and get back to you on this…
I saw it last week, and again today. I loved it, absolutely loved it. On second watch, you start to feel it’s a bit rushed.. not.. rushed exactly, so much as they crammed a LOT into one move. It’s even fatigue in film version, but on a first watch, there in the theater? It’s glorious.
While the War Machine moments felt kinda.. forced into the movie, everyone else of this rather gigantic cast got their fair share of the spotlight, although I imagine that that opinion’s going to vary greatly. I loved the characters – and James Spader as Ultron was…and interesting choice, and he kills it. When
SPOILERS NOW
the Scarlet Witch first turned on him.. his.. “Please, don’t do this” was.. heartbreaking. Again, as he tells Natasha he’s got nobody else to talk about his evil plans to.. to use my friends words “There’s a humanity there that gnaws at you.”
And The Vision, oh, man, words cannot express the amount of love I have for the Vision, this… almost angelic being of goodness and kindness and alienness from everyone around him, floating in to save the day and ready to judge the mad, filled with nothing but the hope for the best of humanity. That moment when he lifted Mjolnir was the most gasp-worth movie moment I may ever have had. And the fact that he has the Mind Gem makes me realize this is the closest I’m going to ever get to seeing J’onn J’onnz in a movie.
The action was incredible, it was.. over the top in only the way superhero movies can be. Breathtakingly so, and I loved how much thought goes into keeping the civilians safe.. though it still bothers me a bit that they brushed off the fact that people DID die(there’s no way they didn’t) or the fallout of having a pretty big chunk of a town being vaporized. Sure, it was to save the world, but how many people outside the Avengers really know that?
And heh, they gave Hawkeye some actual characterization, I was really happy about that.
I feel.. I feel this movie has kinda earned the Avengers their big, cosmic, universally scaled two-part Infinity War, I have faith in its being exactly as overpowering as it needs to be without having the effect of such grand a scale lost on an audience.
Easiest to start with what I…
DIDN’T LIKE
It felt slightly formulaic. The slow-mo of civilians fleeing the destruction at the end seemed almost exactly like the similar scene in #1. The mother of the young boy could have replaced the waitress from New York. The pacing felt like they were following a template, and some of the drama elements seemed forced.
The only way to make Earth perfect is to eliminate all the messy humans? We’ve seen that idea a lot of times already. Although, creating your own Earth killing meteor was new.
Super smart robot makes only one real awesome version of himself for the Avengers to fight, not 400 deployed all over the globe?
The scene with Thor recreating his dream doesn’t help the story. I don’t remember learning any more. Were they contractual obligated to include Stellan Skarsgård?
Were they also contractually obligates to include as many actors as possible from past movies?
Well… we have to kill someone… let’s kill the new character.
Some of the humor seem ill placed.
Humor from the evil robot felt out of character.
How many times do you need to point out to your superhero team that some of you might not make it through?
Elizabeth Olsen’s accent felt a bit Boris & Natasha.
LIKED
Starting the movie with action. That’s what we all came to see.
Barron Strucker and his crib. Had the gritty look and feel of the first Captain America movie.
Black Widow and Hulk/Banner relationship, and his decision to leave. Was he keeping her safe from him? Did Banner feel betrayed by her pushing him away to get the Hulk? She seems to love both of them, but Banner hates the rage monster. Relationships are hard. Their bedroom scene was good character development.
Felt like Chris Hemsworth got more to work with in this film. Thought the Thor parts were strong.
Hawkeye’s speech to Scarlet Witch. Best character moment in the whole film.
Captain America standing up to Stark. We all know where that is going.
The Maximoff’s motivation.
OVERALL
No movie will ever live up to my overblown expectations. I can always find plenty to complain about. Take everything with a grain of salt.
Too much going on. I really think they could have cut a quarter to one-third of the plot and given the rest of the story room to breath. The first Avengers seemed more balanced and better paced. This felt like a straight up action movie. A really good action movie, but lacked some of the heart that I believe made The Avengers such a hit with mass audiences.
I felt like they could have cut one third of the action and given the plot more room to breath. So many plot threads with potential, but many of them wound up being mere stand-in formulas because there wasn’t enough time. I liked the party scene because everyone got to act without endless waves of enemies. For me, there needed to be MORE TENSION as the team was supposed to be breaking down. Instead, they just came together anyway. They didn’t really seal the deal that the team was fracturing when they were hanging out at Hawkeye’s house. It’s like they got right up to the edge of drama, and then backed away. A single common foe, unifies a team. They needed better reasons to disagree.
I saw it Thursday night. IMO, this movie is equal to the first Avengers and Winter Soldier.
I won’t say much about the action scenes except they were top-notch. It’s what you expect from a Marvel film.
A lot has been said about character moments. The moments between Natasha and Banner shine, but the one between Hawkeye and Wanda really stands out for me.
Some of my (other) favorite scenes were Hulk vs Hulkbuster, the downtime at the house in the country (No spoilers from me!).
Pros:
I liked the swerve around who dies it cleverly plays on audience expectations (and the knowledge that Joss hates happy married charecters) to completely wrong foot me. Or to quote Quicksliver “I bet you didn’t see that coming”
Loved the reveal of the New Avengers at the end, that’s a team I want to see in action.
The few charecter moments really shine, the party, the scenes at the house really lend weight to what follows.
Cons:
I have the usual gripes about modern action movies too many cuts, too many swooping pans.
I agree with others that too much time was spent on setting things up for sequels especially annoying for people who don’t plan on watching Thor3.
I was a bit disappointed with the handling of Black Widow. All the Avengers have horribly traumatic origin stories why is she the only the only one that cries about it?
On balance a really really good movie but not quite a great one.
I agree with you, Rob, about playing with audience expectations. There were several points in the movie where I thought, I’ve seen Joss Whedon do this a few times in the past, and then WHOOMP he does something different. Even with the overall plot arch, I expected the Avengers to be fracturing in the end, but the ending wasn’t really the downer I thought it would be.
I really enjoyed the film, but I agree with a lot of the comments that parts of the plot felt a bit disjointed. I think the main reason for that is that nearly an hour of the film was cut for time. They have already announced that the cut footage will be on the Blu-ray along with an alternate ending. I’m willing to bet that with those cut scenes restored, most of my issues will go away. Despite that, crazy-fun film with more humor than I had expected.
-Chad
Parents, if your 3 year old won’t keep quiet in the PG-13, 2.5 hours, high speed talking super hero movie, take them out of the dang theatre! I had to watch the movie twice because the first time was ruined because parents think they are awesome by bringing toddlers to a movie.
I liked the movie. It wasn’t the best movie. I think it’s funny that if Tony had stayed in his armor, there probably wouldn’t be a movie since it seems likes Wanda needed some intimate contact with her victims. I like that they have a way out for the original cast.